Mimics break autoexplore

[mumra]

In my last game with a DEWz I started running into this issue with mimics.

Basically after I'd first seen the mimic and knew he was around, autoexplore would keep sending me to try and pick up that Golden Dragon Armour that I knew wasn't real ... or that pile of gold that mysteriously wasn't there before ... etc. It's not totally game breaking but it's pretty annoying, and for a not-very-tough background like a Wizard the damage/poison isn't always trivial. At the very least it's wasted turns healing etc.

The thing is, I couldn't kill the mimic because any time I blasted it with a spell it just disappeared. I don't know how powerful a spell I'd need to one-shot it but I certainly wasn't there yet.

Not sure what the answer to this one is; perhaps once a mimic is known on a level, autoexplore could stop as soon as an item is seen on the edge of LOS, instead of running in to pick everything up straight away? Obviously I could turn off Autopickup but that's quite annoying, and it doesn't entirely stop the problem because for instance with Ctrl-G travel it could pathfind up a corridor where the mimic is.

[jejorda2]

Yeah, it seems like we don't need mimics when we have hidden traps and the possibility of useless artifacts. Maybe summon traps could replace mimics?

[mageykun]

Dunno about a permanent fix, but here's what you can do as a workaround:

when you find that mimic, don't blast it. Let it live. They only tele when low on hp. Drop a travel exclusion on the sucker, and heck, presto, autoexplore works again.

[KoboldLord]

They only teleport when you shoot them. This is to keep you from trivially plinking them with thrown rocks, since they can neither move nor shoot to defend themselves.

As a practical matter, leave that mimic alive and where it is. It makes a good training pet for your fighting skill, since you can take one step back and it absolutely cannot harm you.

Once feature mimics get their kinks worked out, I suspect item mimics will eventually get removed, or at least stop randomly generating. They are amusing, after all, so it wouldn't hurt to leave the item mimic vaults intact.

[njvack]

Mimics are one of the least-amusing monsters in the game, to me. They're annoying (Oh hey, gold! No, wait, I'm poisoned.) and encourage me to fling rocks at random items and features that look suspicious. Then I get to decide if I want to kill 'em (and they hit fairly hard for where they start appearing) or drop an exclusion on 'em.

I'd be perfectly happy if I never saw another weapon, feature, or gold mimic again. I dislike them in the same way I disliked scrolls of paper. (Also: Yay, no more scrolls of paper!)

[varkarrus]

Wall mimics.

[smock]

(Also: Yay, no more scrolls of paper!)

Seconded!

Item mimics are classic RL material. Like bats, they are not fun but might just be part of the genome, for better or worse. Trapdoor spiders are great and adding more similar beasties would be a boon. I rather like feature mimics but I think that changing their icon to some shapeshifterish beasty, once uncovered, would be nice. It's silly to get chased around by stairs with teeth, but if the stairs were an illusion made by a negarious doppleganging critter....

[galehar]

I rather like feature mimics but I think that changing their icon to some shapeshifterish beasty, once uncovered, would be nice. It's silly to get chased around by stairs with teeth, but if the stairs were an illusion made by a negarious doppleganging critter....

Are you kidding me? Being chased down by a door with huge teeth is hilarious! That's exactly what motivated the addition of feature mimics, so don't expect it to go.

[joellercoaster]

^ yeahthat. I love mimics, they are hilarious... even when they're pretending to be Labyrinth portals

[TGW]

Keeping something explicitly unfun just because other roguelikes have it is an awful idea, and not how Crawl works.

[KoboldLord]

Xom thinks mimics are hilarious, and so do I. I would be sad to see them go.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Mimics were more amusing when their combat text read "The potion of heal wounds hits you!" instead of "The mimic hits you!"

[Lantier]

Mimics exist because the devs like to mess with you. Case in point.

Trig's blasting her way through the dungeons and sees this:



Oh yeah. That's a fun horde to have between you and a Bazaar. What daring adventure worth her salt, however, would not rise to the challenge?

Trig breaks up the mob using the stairs and the woefully underpowered Mephitic Cloud spell (can someone buff that, please?). What you don't see in that shot is an Efreet, another Rock Troll, and another Orc Warrior waiting to pounce. Fun stuff. Someone must have forgotten to invite Boris to this party.

Finally, she gets clear and decides to run for it. Hey, the baddies can't follow me through a portal, right? I can heal and recharge there.

Right.



The devs are all Makhleb worshippers I tell ya! All of them!!!

[MrMisterMonkey]

except mimics aren't an interesting challenge or anything like that
they're just cute (???) and annoying
and should not exist

[galehar]

except mimics aren't an interesting challenge

Have you read Lantier's post? Are you trolling?

[MrMisterMonkey]

oh oops
it's pretty easy to tell bazaar mimics are false, though; they're just an interface screw.
and my points still stand

[Kate]

It was proposed to cut feature mimics back to just doors, shops and stairs (not branch stairs) which at least fixes most of the interface screw. Door mimics in particular are actually pretty cool now they replace real doors. Portal and trap mimics are/were awful though, yeah.

[pratamawirya]

Mimics aren't bad. They're monsters which fool the player by appearances and descriptions; the basic premise is good.

[MrMisterMonkey]

written before prat:

aren't trap mimics already gone?
at least I hope they are

I can see mimics working if they either fulfilled all of:

• dangerous and replacing something valuable enough to make a choice of whether to actually go for the thing
• rare enough not to be annoying
• not screwy on the interface at all; doesn't pretend to be anything silly, the stuff it replaces is special and autoexplore knows to avoid it and let the player decide
• impossibly to determine legitimacy through silly tricks; players should have to risk confrontation

or they were nasty surprises without a silly mimicry gimmick
but traps and trapdoor spiders are better for this


written after:

good luck making the foolery interesting and not just a nuisance

[Kate]

aren't trap mimics already gone?
at least I hope they are

Yup, they were the worst offenders by far but portals (and branch stairs in the wrong places) are almost as bad.

[Lantier]

In case I wasn't clear, I think mimics have a place in the game. When it pretends to be something valuable -- and something that you will lose if you don't act now -- it is a great element.

Yeah, sure, if the shop was just sitting there, you can just test it with a Dart or something. If it is just a pile of gold that you autopickup, that is kinda boring too. But if mimics pretend to be a potion of Heal Wounds / a Polymorph Wand / a Portal in the middle of baddies, then the anxiety/letdown combo is hellafun.

Well, hellafun assuming you don't get killed by it...

[MrMisterMonkey]

urgency is nice, yes, but I don't think it's either necessary or sufficient
would couple nicely with both styles I listed though
(for the first it makes it so the player cannot wait to grow powerful enough to defeat potential mimics & for the second I guess it would just have to be dangerous enough to require immediate action)


I guess a more general case of mimics than my first case might be exercising the player without reward, but this doesn't work well without further restriction, because it's possible to end up with cases where the exercise is trivial (current mimics are pushovers for most characters and ignorable for others) or meaningless (current mimics don't create choices)

requiring urgency here would help here I guess but it seem a bit tricky to pull off


on specific cases of urgency, sometimes it's more interesting if the item is real, though

on needing an item for survival (derived from heal wounds example): if the player actually needs the item desperately enough to go out of its way in high tension or whatever and risking mimics and all, assuming mimics are actually dangerous, I'm guessing the mimic case is the same as the nonexistence case: death. This is a fine side-effect but I'm not sure if it's desirable enough to strive for it; I'd say both mimic and non-mimic are about as interesting.

on needing to prevent monsters from getting an item (derived from polymorph example): the mimic case is actually less interesting than the non-mimic case, because in the non-mimic case, the monsters get to punish the player, forcing further change in behavior

on needing to act or else missing out on potential goodies (derived from portal example), like the required item example except for a few things
player puts itself into danger instead of danger being implied by the premise, meaning there's a choice involved (good, though this choice is also there if mimics didn't exist at all)
nonexistence case (no danger) and mimic case (player potentially in danger from seeking reward, and sometimes even more so than if mimics didn't exist at all) differ, meaning it actually matters (good)
overall, I think this is the best urgency mimic usage

[galehar]

I agree that the current implementation is lacking. However, I think mimics have real potential.